How Seto Kaiba Canceled Christmas
by Cassandra Cassidy
Summary: A Christmassy fic about Kaiba! Yes, I know it's a bit late it was a gift for someone. XD Anyhow: Kaiba gets fed up with all the Christmas nonsense and decides it must be stopped, and he's just the powerful CEO to do it...


_Author's Notes: SHOCK! Be amazed, all, as I post something that ISN'T about Yami, Bakura, or Yami AND Bakura..._

_Inspired by a conversation with my friend ShalilaJupiter (LiveJournal), I decided to write a fic about "Christmas Kaiba"... XD. At first, I just made a quick picture in PSP7... very very quick... which you can view here: _

_Anyway, I thought it'd be funny to make a fic with it. So..._

_Dedication:Written as a Christmas gift toShalilaJupiter, for inspiring the fic and for being an awesome listener and one of my newest online friends. : )_

_Warnings: Swearing... possible OOCness... gratuitous Christmas-y humor. XD_

_Enjoy!_

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**How Seto Kaiba Cancelled Christmas**

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The streets of Domino City, like those of many other cities of its kind, were flooded with shoppers as the first weekend of December dawned. People packed themselves into every last store, searching for such-and-such a gift for this child and that grandparent and those cousins. It wouldn't have been surprising if the entire population was out there…

…the entire population, sans Seto Kaiba.

Seto Kaiba was watching the populace from the highest window in the Kaiba Corporation tower, a sneer affixed to his face. He had no need for this silly shopping nonsense – he only had one person to give a gift to, and he had built said gift himself. The ultimate in security devices, his hand-made, one-of-a-kind Mokuba Protector 2004 was designed to give potential kidnappers a run for their money… literally. It was equipped with a holographic projector to conceal his little brother from those nasty spies, a jet-pack in case Mokuba needed to get out of a sticky situation, a rocket-launcher for aerial combat, and a stun-gun… because every kid should have a stun-gun.

Those corporate bastards would have one hell of a time taking his brother from him again… heh heh heh…

Shaking his head to clear it, Kaiba turned from the detestable sight and moved to sit demurely in his large executive chair, resting one elbow on his large executive desk as he turned on his large executive computer. He steepled his fingers as the main screen came into focus, watched as the morning stocks ticked by, and then got to work, checking on the status of a report he had sent out the previous day. He was at that foggy point where the outside world is almost drowned out by the world of productivity when a sharp knock on his door snapped him back to the former place, irritating him greatly and ruining his focus.

"Enter," he growled, and the door swung open to reveal his secretary, Anosi. She was the sister of his most trusted employee, Isona, and she did her job well, which Kaiba had to appreciate to some degree. He still did not like being interrupted, however, which he made quite apparent when he snapped, "This had better be important – no – VITAL, Anosi… I'm busier than usual with all this Christmas nonsense going on."

Anosi cleared her throat. "Well, sir, about that… Isona was looking at our schedules, and it says we're both supposed work on Christmas Day…"

"Yes." Kaiba glanced up from his computer screen with a slightly perturbed expression. "Is that going to be problematic for some reason…?"

Anosi tried to hide her disbelief. "Seto-sama, I'm sure that you understand that Isona and I… we have family… I mean, we ARE family…"

"Make your point."

"Well, we were rather hoping to be home for the holidays, sir, if that wouldn't be too much trouble…"

Kaiba frowned deeply at the woman. "…He sent you here to beg for the day off, didn't he?" he asked, glowering at the now-nervous-looking Anosi.

Anosi shook her head vehemently. "Oh, no, sir; I came all on my own! Please don't blame Isona!"

Kaiba raised an eyebrow. "Who said anything about Isona? I meant Mokuba."

"…Oh."

"I suppose since I'm not even going to be here that you might as well have the day off. How unproductive…" he fell to muttering to himself.

Anosi, ecstatic, bowed herself from the room. "Thank you so much, Seto-sama..."

"Hn." Kaiba went back to the world of work as Anosi closed the door.

He was almost fully-immersed in payroll when the phone rang. Kaiba growled in frustration and lifted the receiver. "What is it?" he snapped.

"Hello, Kaiba-boy!"

Kaiba groaned. "What do YOU want?"

Pegasus chuckled. "Just to congratulate you on Kaiba Corp.'s sales this holiday season… those Duel Disks are just FLYING off the shelves, aren't they?"

"…"

"Don't be such a Scrooge, Kaiba-boy; I'm trying to wish you a Merry Christmas."

"Well you're interrupting me at my job." And with that, he hung up the phone. "Payroll," he muttered in annoyance, and quickly got back to work.

Kaiba left his office feeling accomplished; after Pegasus's interruption, he had worked in peace for the rest of the day. Now he was off to his house, where Mokuba would be waiting for him, and he would cook dinner and the evening would be great. If only the limo would go faster…

Glancing out the window, he realized that, instead of speeding up, the limo had stopped altogether. But they were not outside the gates of Kaiba's mansion. No, they were stopped in the middle of the street, with several other cars, as a flood of pedestrians… well… flooded across the crosswalk ahead. Kaiba frowned.

"What's going on?" he asked of his driver.

The man glanced at Kaiba in the rearview mirror. "Last-minute shoppers, sir. I suppose they're all headed home, just as you are, sir."

Kaiba's frown deepened considerably, but he sat in silence as the last of the shoppers finally scuttled across the street. The limo made it the rest of the way home unhindered, and Kaiba forgot the whole incident over dinner as Mokuba told him animatedly of the events of his school day.

The next morning, however, the limo encountered another horde of people. Kaiba felt his eye start to twitch after a few minutes of waiting. He was about to order the driver to just plow the road when the car began steadily moving forward once more, barely saving the unknowing shoppers from a gruesome end.

"Red is a Christmas color," Kaiba grumbled to himself.

During Kaiba's lunch break – contrary to the rumors around his office, he DID take one – he decided to walk to a nearby café. He had had a very long morning, and was in great need of caffeine. He was halfway there when he ran into a very familiar, very undesirable group of people.

"…I toldja, Honda, I'm not going to follow you around with mistletoe at the damned dance!"

"C'mon, Jounouchi-buddy – take one for the team?"

"As if, horn-head! No amount of greenery is going to land YOU with a girl to smooch."

"Maybe I'll just call up Shizuka and invite her home for the holidays…"

"Say WHAT?!?!"

"Would both of you guys SHUT UP?!"

"You're one to talk, Anzu – you've GOT a date to the dance!"

"Uh… hey, look guys, it's Kaiba-kun!"

This last was spoken by Yugi Mutou, who was now hurrying over to Kaiba, who had to resist the urge to run in the opposite direction. The duelist's friends followed their vertically-challenged companion over, albeit grudgingly.

The five stood in silence for a moment. Kaiba glared down at them. Anzu kept glancing from Yugi to her fingernails. Honda stood glancing around, presumably for an escape route. Yugi was smiling up at Kaiba as if he had something amicable to say right on the tip of his tongue, but couldn't quite get it out. Jounouchi beat him to the punch.

"Hiya, Moneybags. Shopping for Mokuba?"

Kaiba grimaced. "As if any of these pathetic establishments have anything worthy of a member of the Kaiba family," he sneered, the mere thought making him cringe.

Jounouchi scowled. Before he could say anything, though, Yugi said quickly, "What about you, Kaiba-kun; what do **you** want for Christmas?"

His friends all looked at him as if he had gone mental. Kaiba, for his part, remained aloof. "I want the lot of you to get out of my way so I can go drink my coffee in peace."

Yugi looked a bit miffed. Honda blinked. "You don't have any coffee, Kaiba."

"I will as soon as you imbeciles stop blocking the entrance to the café!" Kaiba snapped. The group quickly hurried aside, and Kaiba swept past them and through the doors.

It took only a moment for him to realize they had followed him inside.

He whirled around. "What is it now?" he ground out, at the edge of his patience.

"There must be SOMETHING you want for Christmas, Kaiba," Anzu said, hoping to make Yugi feel better.

"Nothing that I couldn't get for myself," he said coldly, before turning to order his coffee. When he turned around, the group was thankfully gone, and Kaiba walked back to his office in blessed, coffee-warmed silence.

The more he thought about it, the less Kaiba liked this whole Christmas idea. All it did was cause him hassle. Blocked traffic, made people act stupider than normal… it was nothing but trouble. There had to be something he could do to clear the roads and return the city's cumulative IQ to its usual level…

"That's IT!" Kaiba suddenly shouted, earning him a nervous look from Anosi, who had just entered to do some filing. "I'll **cancel** Christmas!"

Anosi hesitated for a moment. "Um... sir...?"

"What is it, Anosi? Can't you see I'm plotting?!"

"I don't think you can... CANCEL Christmas..."

"I can do whatever I want - I'm Seto Kaiba!" Kaiba bellowed. Then he frowned. "...Did you just question me?"

Anosi shook her head quickly. "No, no; never, sir."

Kaiba sneered. "Good." He paused. "Now get on the phone."

"Who am I calling, sir?"

"Every store in Domino. Tell them they are not to sell anything that could possibly be used as a Christmas gift. I'll put a stop to this useless frivolity, just you watch..."

Kaiba fell to muttering to himself as Anosi left to attempt her task. He got back to work, and worked straight on through the afternoon with few interruptions - his favorite type of day. It never lasted, though...

There was a sharp knock on the door, and at Kaiba's "Enter", Anosi scurried in with a nervous look.

"What is it?" he grumbled.

"Sir… the store-owners aren't very happy…"

"Good… stamp out that damned holiday cheer. It's bothersome and pointless and—"

"Sir… they're threatening to revolt, sir…"

"…Oh." Kaiba frowned for a moment. "Well, let the fools try!" With a laugh, he went back to work, leaving Anosi to wring her hands and then hurry off to try to quell the masses, who were trying to storm the tower.

The traffic only worsened, Kaiba noted in aggravation. By the time he got to Kaiba Corp., he was sure he would have to have his limousine entirely re-painted to rid it of all the key-marks.

Around mid-afternoon Isona came in with Kaiba's mail, deposited it on the desk, and skittered back out. Kaiba raised an eyebrow. It was never a good sign when Isona felt the need to skitter.

That was about the time he noticed the package on his desk, with the red-and-white-striped envelope taped to it. He twitched. "That better be from Canada..."

Opening the envelope with his Blue Eyes White Dragon designer letter-opener, Kaiba pulled out a non-descript piece of white paper. His eyes scanned the text, which was written in several different hands. Then he began twitching in earnest.

_Kaiba –_

_We all pooled our money and bought you this._

_But it was totally my idea, though._

_Shut up, Jounouchi._

_You guys aren't being very friendly..._

_::scribbling::_

_Anyway, we hope you like it-- Jounouchi-kun, what are you doing with that tape?!_

_Yeah, you better like it; that was my life savings!!!_

_You only gave us three dollars!_

_FRIENDSHIP!!!_

_::scribbling::_

_MERRY CHRISTMAS, KAIBA-KUN!_

Kaiba wondered idly if he could sue Yugi-tachi for harassment, but decided he'd get more out of it if there turned out to be something horrendous in the box. He tore the tape off and sifted through the Styrofoam packing peanuts. He reached down and grabbed something cloth-like... withdrew his arms...

...and stared in bewildered silence at the red-and-white-striped trenchcoat that appeared in his hands.

Just for good measure, he dug around in the box some more, and by the time he was done searching, he had discovered a Santa-hat, red leather boots with white fur around the tops, several red-leather armbands with gold bells attached, and a green KC pin with a wreath pattern around the letters.

He made his way in silence to his private bathroom, where he changed into the outfit, despite his brain's protests. On the one hand, it DID look like a rather expensive outfit... on the other, it was rather tacky, and it was from Yugi-tachi. There was one thing for certain - only the mutt could pick out something like this. Kaiba rolled his eyes as he turned to face the mirror.

"Hmm..."

The coat had nice flare to it. That was difficult to find in un-tailored clothes, as was the fit of the whole thing. "You finally used that sorry excuse for a brain, Mutt," he muttered. "I'm ALMOST impressed."

He swaggered back to his office, and picked up the receiver of his phone. No sense in breaking his own law. Anosi picked up. "Yes, sir?"

"Nevermind canceling Christmas... it brings too much revenue to the company to bother with."

"Um... all right, sir... whatever you say..."

He hung up and wandered over to his window, watching the snow fall for a few minutes. The crowd teeming around the base of the building dispersed, presumably back to the re-opened stores. A smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth.

"It would be awfully callous of me not to give a gift in return..."

He practically flounced to his limo. Santa Claus indeed.

---

Yugi and his friends sat in a booth at Burger World at the end of their last day of school, opening presents from various friends and admirers that they had collected throughout the day. Anzu glanced at their mounds of gifts and blinked.

"Hey, we all have a box wrapped in candy-cane stripes," she pointed out. Oddly enough, none of the group could remember who they'd received the identical packages from. They decided to open them all together.

Each let out varied shouts of anger, indignation, and alarm at their own box's contents.

Within four identical boxes lay four identical green headbands, each with a set of realistic-looking antlers protruding from the top. Each also contained a green leather collar with a gold bell.

Yugi, recovering first, was also the first to notice the note in his box. He picked it up with a nervous frown, and his friends quickly followed suit.

Jounouchi and Honda reacted in unison.

"Kaiba, you rotten son of a—!"

There, on four identical slips of paper, Kaiba's elegant calligraphy stated:

I'm above manual labor, so you get to drag the sleigh.

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_End Notes: Hope you enjoyed and that it didn't seem too rushed… I was trying to fit a whole month into it, lol. Yay Grinchy!Kaiba. XD_


End file.
